buzzerj
Well-Known Member
Yeah Yooper if you are extending the invitation, my wife and I will drive up from Milwaukee. What time of year is harvest? Show me where the trees are and I''l be glad to pick.
Bob dug 63 pounds of chokecherries out of the freezer today, and will smash them up while I'm at work.
He asked me to try using more chokecherries per gallon, and less concentrate, so I'm going to use 4 pounds per gallon in the must. I think it might be fairly astringent for a long time, but we'll see how it comes out in the end!
I was searching this topic trying to figure out just how long this wine needs to age. I started a 6 gallon batch with 28 lbs chokecherries (and 0.5 gallon grape juice) in September and it looks great but wow are the tannins heavy. I made a second wine with the leftovers from that batch plus a few pounds of crabapples (1 gallon) and it's delicious already and is such a nice looking rose colored wine. I see you started your batch later than mine but I thought Id bump to see if anyone else has tried a heavy fruit chokecherry wine? How did it come along?
I did that just this year. I used about 5 pounds per gallon this year, and it's pretty intense. I haven't oaked it as it is also more tannic. I think it'll be good in the end. I'll check on it in April and see how it's coming along.
Yeah Yooper if you are extending the invitation, my wife and I will drive up from Milwaukee. What time of year is harvest? Show me where the trees are and I''l be glad to pick.
Bummer... The chokecherries around my area of the UP are looking REALLY nice this year!
If only i could find some...
We found more than we thought we would- in some places they are sparse, but in others they are more abundant. We have 44 pounds right now in the freezer, and aren't done yet!
When I grow up I want to be just like you.
I am 30, all about the hunter/gatherer life and I'm thought weird by most too, I don't know if age has much to do with it! Just got my first 5 gallon batch of this stuff together, do you have any tips or tricks on de-stemming the chokecherries? 15 pounds of it was pretty tedious, I don't know if I could handle 45! Must be some good wine, I am excited to try it next year.
Any chance you could get a picture of the berry cluster and the leaves for identification? I have a tree on the edge of my yard that might be chokecherry but I really don't know and am not one to just eat something unknown.
Where do I get large mesh bags, do you have a picture, or dimensions? 15-20 lbs of choke cherries in the freezer, ready to start some wine. Do you add a clearing agent?
Chokecherry picking is underway here! We have about forty pounds in the freezer. It's that time of year again- busy, busy. We'll have wine to show for it in the end, so it's worth it. I still love this wine.
Hi, Yooper -
I finally got started with this, and am kicking myself for not doing so sooner. It was easy as pie, and I appreciate your advice.
Anyway, I'm 5 days into my primary fermentation (I pitched the Montrachet yeast on Sunday), and as far as I can tell, things are going pretty well. Here's how it looks:
Pardon the cruddy cell phone photo - the burgundy is much deeper than it appears.
I have a hydrometer, but nothing to put the must in to test it. I tried tilting the primary bucket enough to make it deep enough, but no luck. I have a test jar/tube thingamajig coming, hopefully tomorrow, so I'll be able to see where I'm at then.
If taste is any indication, I think we're pretty far along. There pretty much no sweetness at all left in the must; rather, it is fairly sour with some bitterness, but still a chokecherry character. I am not 100% up on my wine terms, but if I am correct, there's a fair amount of tannin taste, kind of like dark chocolate without the sugar, or maybe an "oaky" dark wine. It's not unpleasant at all, but since I didn't add any tannin when I started (long story), it is unexpected.
I was going to rack to secondary tomorrow or Sunday - should I strain the must through a mesh screen as I do so, or simply rack it all over and let gravity do the rest?
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